


Daddy's Girl

by Sceritz



Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Family Bonding, Family Issues, Guardians of the Galaxy - Freeform, Knowhere (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-25 07:41:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16193111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sceritz/pseuds/Sceritz
Summary: Dione doesn't seem to know who he is. Perhaps this creates an opportunity of Thanos, and his relationship with his daughter.





	Daddy's Girl

For an eternity in the sprawling fields, Dione toiled. He relished in sowing the seeds of life. For as long as he could remember, he reaped the product of his tireless cultivation. His lands grew until it seemed that his greenery, littered with sprouts of fresh reds, blues and other fruitful hues had encompassed the entirety of his private moon.

Despite this expanse, he lived in a small cozy hut. He was alone, and he did not mind the solitude. His company was kept only by his fields, and the small orange stone that hung round his neck. He could not remember where he'd acquired it but he knew he never felt quite right without it. His days were peaceful and his nights restful. That is until as of late. 

The dreams came in the form of a somber gloom, at first. A haze of darkness with muffled voices and amorphous shapes. Then they grew more torrential. Dione found himself filled with a fierce fear, but an even more, a fierce hunger for understanding. Soon the nights became trials. He knew something was calling to him. He would fight to reach it. 

In each nightmare, the voices grew more clear, the shapes more definitive. One was a girl, green of skin, an odd compliment to his purple. She called to him. He felt something for her but he couldn't place it. A familiar face he'd never seen. 

Then there was something else. Something larger, and far more sinister. It bred destruction, like unto an offering to Death. He could hear the screams more clearly now as they pleaded for mercy that they were unworthy of. They all cried the same name. 

"Thanos." 

He awoke in a rush, clutching tight to the stone around his neck. It was warm to the touch. He still could hear the voice calling to him, even without vocal utterance. He had to go. There was no way off his moon. No ship or transport. But then, as if by pure strength of will, there was. 

His travels followed the call through the cosmos. He passed through the stars, and by many celestial bodies. Stopping only when he reached a celestial head. A place his instincts told him was called K.N.O.W.H.E.R.E. 

The whispers began from the moment he emerged from his ship in the bay. He immediately sensed their fear. He was aware that he was a large man, imposing in stature even, with a build made for crushing boulders. He had a harsh face, purple skin, and deep wells for eyes that looked as if they contained the answers of infinity, but this terror elicited from his mere presence was... unnatural.

Beings of all builds and backgrounds distanced themselves from him. He sauntered on regardless, considering for a moment if he should lift the hood of his white robe, to mask his face. But before he could even lift his hand he found his path to be blocked, of all things, by a dog that seemed to be wearing a space suit. At the same moment red lights began blinking as loud alarms blared throughout the station.

"I don't be knowink where you thinkink you are goink. But it won't be K.N.O.W.H.E.R.E., fast..." The voice was gruff, of a sharp accent and entirely in his mind. The dog was flanked by a half a dozen armored guards with large sleek assault weapons trained on him.

Dione's eyes widened, bewildered. "Wait, I'm only here to-"

"Be givink him no pause!" The dog's voice sounded once again in his mind. Fingers compressed triggers and searing bolts belted into Dione's skin. The pain was like an old long forgotten friend. His mind flashed to a place of fire and corpse stained air. He saw that dark figure standing amid the decrepit earth, lifelessness all around. And that wide, sinister smile. It was him. It was...

"Thanos!" The dog's voice barked in his mind. Dione's attention returned to the corporeal and felt the burn of energy lasers. There was pain yes, but scarcely any harm. But the invisible torrent that released from the now leaping dog from just yards away... Dione found himself tumbling backwards as if hit by a powerful gust. A psychic attack. 

"Be switchink to energy channelink! High output will be puttink him down!" The pelting stopped only to be replaced by a far more agonizing surge of pain. Three of the guard's weapons were channeling energy beams that locked onto him. He was sure this level of power would have quickly destroyed a lesser being. But quiet man or not, Dione knew he was made of something greater than what even these weapons could handle. 

He gathered his will and with a roar, lunged at one of the men. 

________________________________________

"Okay look, here's how it goes. Ya listening?" The Raccoon that knew for certain, that he wasn't a raccoon, held a Galaxy Run in his hands, while the ravager with a countenance only two pockmarks prettier that Taserface's, held a high pair. "So, if I win I get 50k. If I loose, I still get 30k but you get to keep your dignity. Whadoyasay?"

Pockface let out a low growl. "How is that fair? You would still be taking 30,000 of my credits!"

The Raccoon's face furrowed in surprise "Huh? What are you talkin' about? That's totally fair!"

"Rocket, stop pissing people of for no reason." Gamora said. She was next to Rocket leaned back in the old bar booth, arms resting on the top, half full flagon in hand. Off duty hours let her dark green hair fall over her green skinned face. 

"Why not? I'm just gonna piss 'em off by winning again, anyways." Rocket threw down his cards. "Galaxy Run, by the way. Thanks for playin'." he winked at the Ravager.

Pockface roared and slammed his hand on the table so hard half the credits clattered on the floor. At that same moment the security alarms started blaring, code orange. Gamora snapped to her feet. "That can't be good."

"Nope, it can't be. Have fun." Rocket said, as he picked up his new hand. Gamora glared at him. "Oh c'mon, don't give me that look, I'm on a roll! You think I'm gonna break that just because some flarkin' lights started blinkin'?" Gamora rolled her eyes and procured the sword that had been resting against the booth next to her. The emerald stone in it's hilt seemed to gleam when she touched it. "I'll give Quill a call and let him know you ran off to guard the galaxy by yourself this time."

By the time Gamora had arrived down in the bay there were already two station guards lying on the ground. A third had just been flung past her through the entrance she'd just come through. And that's when she saw him. "No..." she said. "No!" 

Dione turned in time to see the woman running at him, sword poised for attack, and in that moment, he paused. It was her. The woman from his dreams. She swung at him with deft precision. He side stepped the attack. At the same moment he was hit with another energy beam, but he whirled and smacked the weapon away from the man's hand. When he went to strike him, the woman was there again, blocking his blow with the wide flat side of the broadsword. The impact still sent her sliding back several feet.

"Why couldn't you just stay gone, Thanos." Gamora said with no small amount of venom in her words. She swung her weapon again, and again, he dodged.

"That name..." Dione said, as he continued to avoid her strikes. 

"No matter what happens..." she said as she landed a combo of kicks to his chest to send him staggering. "You always..." her momentum sent her into leaping roundhouse kick that jerked his head hard to the side "Come back!" her blade came around to finish the assault with what have been a sure decapitation.

Dione caught the blade in his hand. A deep purple oozed from the gash. When he touched it, something in him ignited, as if he felt himself being pulled into the weapon. As if his very soul yearned to be taken. It was almost enough to make him falter. "Gamora" he said. "That's your name... isn't it? Gamora." 

She squinted her eyes in confusion. "Thanos?"

"Why do people keep calling me by that name?" Dione asked. His eyes bore deep into hers. She seemed to be speechless. "Tell me."

Gamora tilted her head at him. Her eyes flicked to Cosmo, the psychic dog, then back to Thanos. She pulled her weapon from his hand. The soul sucking feeling left. "Who attacked first?" she asked. 

"Well we did... but all things beink considered..." Cosmo replied, suddenly confused.

Gamora spun her sword and holstered it on her back. "We're leaving."

Gamora's ship was small for Dione’s stature, but he made due, sitting in one of the passenger seats. Gamora was in the pilot's seat but the ship was on autopilot. He got to his feet and put his hand on her chair. She seemed to bristle, but didn't move.

"Life has a way of turning cruel irony into an art, doesn't it?" 

"Why did you come back?" Gamora's voice was a near whisper.

He took a deep breath. "Sometimes peace isn't enough to settle a man's soul."

"You can't be this. You can't know me." 

"Gamora... something in my soul tells me... I that it would be impossible for me to not know you." 

She turned to look up at him, face all confusion and mixed emotions. "Don't do that. Don't try to appeal to me on an emotional level."

"You called to me, Gamora. I was on a lone moon, living the only quiet life I've ever known without a way off if I wanted it. But 'wanting' is a fickle emotion... our desires are always changing. But what the soul needs... well, necessity is the harbinger of the impossible."

"I don't think you know what you need, Thanos." 

"I know that I once cared for you a great deal."

Gamora stood. "You don't know how to-"

"Despite whatever extenuating variables may have complicated the notion, I know that even with this void where knowledge and experience once existed, there is still that base instinct... to care for you." he swept a finger cross her face to remove a lock of hair from her eyes. "Like a father would a daughter."

Gamora averted her eyes, and then looked back towards him. "What you think you are... it's not really you."

Dione seemed to contemplate that. "I know that some part of me is missing. But being near you seems to have a mending effect. Whatever I was before, so be it. This is who I am now."

The planet they landed on was not as lush as Dione's but it was close enough. There were rolling hills and the safe house that Gamora had taken them to was at least a few miles from any other establishment. He sat outside, savoring the cool breeze on his face. Gamora came to meet him, looking out into the distance. "You'll be safe here, for now. Not many know about this place." 

"So... Deadliest woman in the galaxy." Dione said with wry smile.

"I'm what you made me." 

"Mmmm, that complicates the matter of pride."

"There's sort of a morbid appreciation that has something to do with how I choose to use my talents." 

"Your training... I can't conjure any particular moments, but I know they happened. They're are dreams, distant like from some past life. I remember being hard on you.“

“Tough love, right?" Gamora let a small chuckle escape. She sat next to him and he felt her eyes on him. "You know that this... however real this is or isn't... This is something I always wanted.“

"Reality is what we make of it." 

She glanced at the stone hanging from his chest, and looked forward to the hills again. "Maybe what you make of it." 

"I can imagine, that with a name like Thanos whatever I was before must have been terrifying. But it feels inconceivable. I'd never be capable of the kind of fear I seem to inspire." Dione said. 

Gamora laughed then. "Oh you're capable, all right." When it tapered off, she added "or at least you were..." 

"All I have now, is an instinctual connection to you. A feeling that tells me That you're important. It seems to have manifested a new sense of purpose in my spirit."

And then he felt a hand touch his arm. A gentle, comforting hand. "It's not in your spirit, Thanos. It's in your heart. And it's called love." 

He turned to look at her almost a look of surprise on his face. 

"Don't worry it's been a foreign concept to me for a long time, too." she said with a smile, but it quickly dwindled, and she removed her hand. "Listen. Your past- It's going to difficult, but you can't go chasing it down." 

He smiled, warmly. "The only part of my past that needed finding was you. After a time of restlessness, I feel that with you I... I have peace again."

She turned her gaze away at that. "That's... That's good but... There's something that you need to know..."

At that moment, a deafening sound like ripping fabric tore through the atmosphere and from a wormhole just yards away, three figures emerged. The hole closed again with a sucking pop. 

Quill spoke up. "Gamora, please don't tell me that's who I think it is." He was holding a blue stone in his hand. The space stone.

There was apology in his eyes but Gamora wanted to slap the look from his face. At once she was to her feet. "Quill, how did you-"

Rocket was on his back "Sorry Gamora. I cleaned up and caught you two hoppin' ship. I figured Quill might know where you were off to." 

"We talked about this, Gamora." This was Moondragon. The women was bald, tall, slim and had the air of a deity. A stone not unlike Thanos' sat in the center of her forehead. The mind stone. "We explicitly agreed on avoiding this exact situation." 

"You're coming back with us, Thanos." This was Drax, a destroyer of a man, green body riddled with tattoos and sinew. A stone sat in a ring on one of his fingers. The power stone. "Don't make this difficult." 

"Wait! Just... Wait." Gamora held her hands out. "He's not what he was. He's... he's different ." 

"You cannot see with my minds eye. He is in conflict." Moondragon said. Her eyes were glowing and the stone in her head shone bright. "He seeks to be whole. We can't allow that. Take him." 

Drax's swift movements betrayed his hulking mass. Had Gamora not had the instinctual reflexes her entire life had embedded in her, this fight would have been over in that instant. Instead... "Thanos, move! that stone on his finger gives him power!" And just as the two of them leapt back, Drax smashed the earth, creating a shock wave that rippled through all of them, that reduced their small hill into a large crater. 

Destroyed earth rained down all around them as Gamora moved between them and her father, sword drawn. "Stop this! If you would just wait a damn minute!" 

Moondragon hovered forward on a peice of earth. "A minute is all he needs... less while he holds the reality stone. So stay out of our way!" Moondragon flicked her hand, the stone in her forehead shone, and Gamora found herself careening through the falling rubble.

Star-Lord, and Rocket flanked Thanos, with hover boots and jet pack respectively, sending down unrelenting fire from their weapons. "You should've just stayed on your farm, dude. I would've eventually dropped you a mixtape!" 

Dione held a hand to shield his head and eyes from the firepower, but they kept pouring. He could feel something building in him. Something that had briefly reared its head back on K.N.O.W.H.E.R.E. A brewing rage. He roared, an let it out in the form of fuchsia twin eye lasers. 

Both Star-Lord and Rocket Raccoon dodged to either side at the last minute to avoid. "Woah, that was too flarkin' close! Hey watch where you aim those things!" Rocket chided. "You know what Quill? I think it's time for the big gun."

"You want the big gun?" Star-lord asked as he unstrapped the shoulder canon from his back.

"Yeah, gimme the big gun." 

"You got it." Quill tossed the weapon, that was easily twice the size as Rocket, who caught, it, let the momentum spin him, and then fired all in the same action. The blast was a direct hit and Dione's body was smashed into the side of the new crater.

"Oh man, Groot would've loved this."

"You can't win this, Gamora. You're outnumbered, and your'e defending something that you know in your heart you shouldn't be." Earth and stone twisted around Moondragon in a helix as she sent it hurling towards Gamora. 

Gamora leaped from each projectile, using them as stepping stones, employing her blade to cut through others. "My heart is why I fight! You and Drax should understand what this means to me, as daughter and father! What we did... Heather, it may have worked!" 

"It broke him, and sometimes shattered pieces are still dangerous." 

"Trying to do battle with the deadliest woman in the galaxy, is dangerous." Gamora found a stone that gave her the altitude that she needed, leaped, and blade reared back like a bat, she came down towards Moondragon.

Then she halted. Moondragon with her hand out, had caught her a few yards away, in mid air. "Doesn't matter how deadly you are if I can see your every move before you make it. The mind stone makes me too powerful."

"Strong mind..." Gamora swiped the blade, and as she did an emerald energy expanded and washed over Moondragon, who stumbled back, loosing telekinetic control of her constructs. Gamora landed innocuously on both feet "Weak soul." 

"Hey Quill, how many times you think I gotta hit 'em with this thing before he decides to throw in the towel. I mean he liked punishment before but this is just ridiculous." Dione had taken a third blast from Rocket's weapon. He groaned, and his body ached.

"Eh, just hit him til he stops moving." Star-Lord said with a shrug. 

Dione began to regain his composure, but he knew that once he did, another blast was coming, and he wasn't fast enough to dodge it. He reached out towards them. A warmth bloomed at his chest, and miraculously, the weapons in his attacker's weapons began to melt. 

"Woah what gives!?" Rocket exclaimed as he dropped the heat slagged glob of metal. 

"He's still got the reality stone, remember?"

"Not for long!" Dione thought another blast of the canon had hit him, only in the side of his face. It was Drax's fist. Gamora was right about that stone, Another hit like that and this fight would be over. "I was created just to destroy you." Drax continued. "And that's exactly what I'm going to do." Drax swung again, but time Dione dodged, grabbed the outstretched arm, twisted it, and proceeded to barrel down on the destroyer with heavy fisted blows. 

Drax caught him with a downward back hand that sent Dione face first into the ground. Drax raised both fists high above but before he could bring them down, he felt something sharp impale his back to the right of his left shoulder blade. Then he felt his soul escaping him. 

"Don't make me put you down, Drax." Gamora said from behind him. 

His vision was blurring. he could feel himself loosing his grip on reality. But he was too strong to fall now. He whirled on her, swinging an arm and she'd just ducked beneath it. Then there was a large hand on his head, and he felt a powerful jolt of pure cosmic energy channel through him, before he dropped lack a sack of rocks. "Strength and rage is nothing without technique, Destroyer." Dione said.

Then both he and Gamora began to howl in pain as they grip their heads in tandem. "And you cannot use technique while your minds are subjected to unfathomable agony." Moondragon called. She was some distance away, walking slowly towards them, eyes and stone illuminated, hand outstretched. 

In a ferocious cry Gamora launched her sword in a throw that would impale Moondragon through the chest. But the psychic simply waved her hand to deflect the weapon off the side where it stuck, blade down, in the torn earth. But Gamora never expected the attack to hit. The distraction was all it took to close the distance between them.

Her melee was fit for the deadliest woman in the galaxy and the only reason Moondragon was able to survive was as result of her own adept martial arts abilities. But that's all she could do... Survive. And barely at that. "You let that power of the mind stone go to your head." Gamora said.

"How literal of you" Moondragon replied, only scarcely defending against Gamora's assault. "You think I'm speaking from a place of pride where practicality is my angle. Thanos is broken." She took a blow to the face that she thought might put her down, but it was obvious that even in this situation Gamora was pulling her punches. 

"Yeah, I know, and you broke him." 

"We! And you know that what he was before could not continue. It was us. Together. Even with the power of the mind stone I could not have done it without you!" The barrage of attacks that followed was even more devastating. Pulled punches or not, Moondragon could not defeat Gamora in physical combat. 

Gamora looked down on her friend, who struggled on feet and knees. "Give this up. This fighting? This destruction? It's what the old Thanos thrives on. Did you stop to think for just a moment that in trying to stop him from returning... you might be bringing him back?"

Moondragon was silent for a moment, only her heaving breaths came from her mouth. Then she spoke. "Thanos was the worse thing to happen to this universe..." She looked up stone and eyes ablaze with power. Gamora cried out, gripping her head. "And I will not allow him to return because you suddenly want to be a daddy's girl, even if it means lobotomizing you to do it!"

Gamora fell the ground, gripping her head. Her mind was on fire. She couldn't move, couldn't think. She felt her own sense of being fleeing. Moondragon was telling no lies. If this continued... 

Dione arrived like a boulder, poised to shoulder into Moondragon, who broke her hold on Gamora, and put up her hands to defend, but before he could reach her Drax intercepted like a linebacker, tackling him out of the way. But Dione was ready. He clasped his hand over Drax's face and let loose a torrent of cosmic energy, before tossing him to the side. 

"You people are foolish to persist. But some part of my being knows you won't stop." He fired a beam of eye lasers that Moondragon dodged, only to be hit by a large stone from the avalanche caused by them hitting the spire of earth behind her. "It seems I'll have to do the stopping for you." 

"Yeah dude, I'm thinking that your nature is... worse than that?" Star-Lord said from behind. Dione whirled on him. "Oh, think fast!" Quill called, and like a spiraled football the flashbang hit Dione in the face, shattering his senses. 

"Alriiiiight, let's so how many mini neutron explosives it takes to knock a big purple guy out." Rocket was on him, snaking around his body, attaching and arming small glowing circular devices to him. Dione twisted and turned, grasping for him to no avail. When about nine of the devices were attached, Rocket blasted away. A small furry finger compressed the detonator. "Boom."

The explosion was earth staggering. Truth be told, Rocket half expected him to be completely obliterated. Yet, as the smoke cleared, there he was, down on one knee, somehow having kept from killing over right then and there. They watched, waiting for him to topple. 

He did, but then caught himself with an open hand. "You test a peaceful man's resolve." Dione choked out. He drug himself forward an inch at a time. "A man who craved understanding, and was instead satiated by the love of his daughter." 

Gamora watched him from the ground, tried to call out to him, and found that her recovering mind hadn't yet remembered how to speak. But she saw it. The look in his eyes, and there, her sword, stuck in the earth, the soul stone in its hilt, beckoning. 

"You call me broken, claim to be able to fix me. I call that arrogant... presumptuous."

Moondragon, gathered herself to her feet, limping toward Dione. Drax was attempting to do the same, but didn't seem to be in a much better state.

"There's something gnawing at my insides about you, mind wielder." Dione said, only inches away now. "...something that tells me that you are pitiable weaver of half-truths." 

Dione was just an inch or so from the sword now. Star-Lord pointed. "Um, guys? I'm not sure it's the best Idea for him to be near that thing?"

"Titan!" Drax howled as he got to something that vaguely resembled standing. "This ends now!" Drax began to sprint, Star-Lord and Rocket blasted forward, and Moondragon flew with every once of mental speed she could muster.

"I wouldn't be so sure." Dione said. Then he grabbed the handle.

For a moment there was an utter silence. Thanos could only feel the echo of the cosmos whispering to him. Then those echoes grew into shouts. The words were unclear, jumbled like a crowd clamoring over itself, but then he recognized the voices were his. When he thought the cacophony would be unbearable, it stopped. When it did, he found himself face to face with... him. His opposite smiled. "Welcome home." 

Thanos' grip on Gamora's sword was magnetic. When he touched it, a shockwave exploded around him. His attackers were tossed in the directions they came. At the same moment, Thanos' white robes disintegrated around him, replaced by a dark armor with gold lining, and upon his head appeared a helmet... exactly like that which he used to wear in the old times. 

Gamora gathered herself to her feet, dread in her heart. "Th-Thanos?"

A wide grin spread across his face, before he turned to face Gamora. "Yes daughter. Me." He began to saunter forward, no hurry in his step, in Drax's direction. He looked at the sword in his hand, admiration in his eyes. 

Whe Thanos reached him, Drax was reaching up towards him, barely capable of speaking. "I'll-I'll destroy you..."

"Maybe one day." The sword slashed like the wind and Drax's hand flew into the hair. Thanos caught it and removed the ring that contained the power stone. Drax roared in agony. 

"I have to commend what you were able to accomplish." Thanos said, as he then turned towards Star-Lord. The man was out cold. "Moondragon used the mind stone to alter my being. Only a telepath of her level with the added help of the stone would be capable of such a feat, and she was successful." he reached into Star-Lord's coat and removed the space stone. At that same moment he felt the familiar tingle of psychic meddling in his mind. "She angled my mind towards a place of true peace and gave time the reality stone to subconsciously will that peace into a utopian existence."

"Thanos... please, they're beaten, we don't have to fight anymore."

Thanos disappeared and reappeared next to Moondragon, space stone illuminated. He cupped her face in his hand, gripping her beneath her chin, hard enough too cut off most of the air flow, but she managed to wheeze, at the very least. "But you knew that wouldn't be enough, didn't you? You knew who I was was in my very soul... and so you convinced my own daughter, who had lost so much to the soul stone before, to excise that part of my soul."

Thanos looked down at Moondragon. "I should crush you. But instead, I will allow you return to your natural state." Moondragon then withered into dust, leaving behind only the stone that had been in her head to rest in Thanos' hand. 

Gamora had reached him now. "Thanos... this... this isn't you anymore. You don't have to be what you were. You know that you can be better."

"What I know, my child, is exactly what I am." 

"You've felt the good. You couldn't have gone through that and not changed. You couldn't have already lost your compassion... y- your love..." her tears came unbidden.

"Gamora... my daughter. Allowing you to live after what you've done, shows the deepest concerns of this dark heart, does it not? Find peace with that." he said as he stoked her face with a finger, wiping away the tears.

"Don't do this." Gamora said as she stared into his eyes.

"It has already been done." There was a genuine sorrow in his eyes. And then, with the glow of the space stone, a rift opened behind him. He smiled. "At least you have time on your side." He stepped backwards into the rift and was gone.

Gamora fell to her knees and for a long, long time... she wept.


End file.
